Updates

Michael Whitney, Firedog Lake
SEIU came out against the Colombia “free trade” agreement today, slamming the deal as a product negotiated by George W. Bush with an “action plan” that does nothing to actually reduce the number of assassinations of union members in the country.

The Columbus Dispatch
Sen. Sherrod Brown, a longtime critic of trade pacts such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, last week assailed the new agreement between the Obama administration and Colombia, charging that "it merely represents another example of Washington being out-of-touch with concerns and values of most Americans."

Roy Takumi, Honolulu Star Adviser
The pending U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement is not a good deal for Hawaii or the United States. As state legislatures across the country struggle to rebuild our economies after the global financial crisis, and balance state budgets, we urgently need forward-thinking policies that will create American jobs.

By Jim Goodman, Common Dreams
While the Boston Globe indicated NAFTA was bad for U.S. jobs and the environment, the San Francisco Chronicle noted that under NAFTA multinational corporations had been able to cut labor costs and increase their profits. KORUS will be no different: bad for workers, good for corporate profits. The U.S. International Trade Commission estimates that under KORUS, the U.S. trade deficit would, again, increase and U.S. jobs would, again, be lost.

By David Dayen, Firedog Lake
Labor unions are not happy with the “action plan” that is seen as a precursor to a free trade agreement with Colombia. Scores of labor organizers have been attacked and even killed in Colombia over the past several years. And the AFL-CIO and other unions simply find the deal insufficient.

Industry Week
Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) announced on April 6 that they have each introduced bills to require the development of a national manufacturing strategy in order to boost traditional and high-tech manufacturing, spur American job growth and strengthen the middle class. America has lost 5.5 million manufacturing jobs, or one-third of the total, over the last decade.

By Ian Fletcher, Huffington Post
For once, some good news: public support for free trade will almost certainly collapse over the next few years. On this issue, the public is way ahead of the political class in the quality of its thinking, and the average hardware store owner in Nebraska understands the real economics involved better than the average U.S. Senator.

By Bennett Roth, Roll Call
To prod lawmakers to approve the long-stalled U.S.-Korea free-trade agreement, the South Korean government is turning to its secret weapon in the United States: Korean-Americans.
The South Korean government has paid the public relations firm Edelman $10,000 per month since September to reach these voters with ads in both English and Korean endorsing the trade deal.

By Jack Perkowski, Forbes
At the State dinner for China President Hu Jintao, Trump said that if he were President, he would just ask the Chinese leader to meet him at his office, rather than holding a state dinner. “For us to be holding state dinners for people who are just totally manipulating their currency…is hard to believe,” Trump was quoted by Liberty News. “You don’t give dinners to the enemy and that’s what they’re doing…I would have sent them to McDonalds if we didn’t make a deal and said, ‘Go home.’…The fact is they’re laughing at our leadership, and we’re letting them get away with murder.”

By Public Citizen
We’re continuing our series of facts in response to the Korean Embassy’s misleading claims on the Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Our full response can be viewed here. This time, the focus is on the Korea FTA’s investor-state dispute resolution mechanism that threatens public interest laws.